On
the fateful day of 17 November 2018 American evangelist John Allan Chau met
his untimely death at the hands of North Sentinelese islanders. John Allan Chau was a Christian preacher who belonged to the so-called First Nation church and a graduate of the evangelical Oral Roberts University. It is a Baptist church which like other Baptists show disdain for other religions including other Christian denominations. The natives of North Sentinel Island, or as I like to call the island, "Red Skull Island", are the inhabitants of an island that constitutes a part of the Andaman Nicobar Island group which is in turn a part of India, (see map below). They are an ancient people who, supposedly, came out of Africa 50000 to 60000 years ago. Nonetheless, they remain self-isolated and do not welcome anyone to their island home. North Sentinel Island is not a large place. It is about the size of Manhattan, New York. The number of natives living on it may number between 50 - 100 people. according to Dr Sasikumar, an Indian anthropologist, in a publication of the Anthropological Survey of India.
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| Location of the Andaman Islands |
According to the newspaper report Dr Sasikumar who leads the Maulana
Abdul Kalam Institute of Asian Studies, publish a report titled "The Sentinelese of the North Sentinel Island: A Reprisal of Tribal Scenario in an Andaman Island in context of Killing of an American Preacher " stated the following issues; the mission of the American preacher, the possibility of the retrieval of his corpse, and interestingly, the charge with his alleged murder the police in the Andaman Islands have pressed against , what the police describe, against unknown tribal members of the Sentinelese community. The publication also stated that the ill fated and tragic demise of John Allan Chau is a matter of grief and that the Andaman police have registered a criminal case against the islanders as stated here earlier.
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| The late John Allan Chau |
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| North Sentinel Islanders. |
The over ten page report authored by Dr Sasikumar stated the important fact that John Allan Chau's death at the hands of the natives is not an isolated incident. There have been previous incidents of people having been slain by the natives of North Sentinel island. he explained that the first known killing of an outsider to the island occurred in 1896 when three escaped convicts tried to reach for the island tried to land there. Two of them drowned in the attempt but a third man managed to beach on the island. The third man was subsequently speared to death by the locals. The second known incident occurred in January 2006 when two Indian fishermen who tried to fish illegally near the island drifted ashore while they slept in their boat. They two were killed by the inhabitants of the island. Dr Sasikumar added that there were attempt to reach the natives of that island in the 1970s which all were but futile and refused by the Sentenilese. In 1991 a visit to the island by the Indian anthropologist, TN Pandit , turned out friendly at first , but unfortunately went wrong.(https://indianexpress.com/article/india/andaman-north-sentinel-island-tribesmen-t-n-pandit-it-took-some-coconuts-and-25-years-5463013/), ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQpXh8YICQ).
In that visit even gifts of hogs, pans and other items
were refused (please click on the hyperlink above). Actually the visit by TN Pandit was warmly received by the locals until one member pointed a dagger at the visitors and signaled them to leave.
There must been a history of contact which the inhabitants found hostile or bad for them. In 1897 a local British administrator called Maurice Vidal Portmann went to the island and took an elderly couple and four children with him for study. The elderly couple fell an died. The children were returned to the island. The episode must have registered badly in the local people's memory. We do not know of any previous contact that went wrong for the locals or outsiders, but perhaps in the distant past there were. Remarkably , TN Pandit's visit turned out friendly at first but turned badly later. The natives on that day must have decided to meet outsiders and this act shows that they are not murderous savages but kind human beings, but like with all human contact, things can go wrong.
The issues I raise here are as follows;
1. Is it possible to arrest that islanders who are not citizens of India and do not know about its laws? Albeit that the islands are a part of India.
2. Should contact be attempted with a people who have no immunity to outside infections?
3. The Sentinelese are part of an ethnic group found in the Andaman Islands. Two tribes on the main island have died out. The remaining tribes are dropping in number. Is this acceptable?
4. Is it acceptable to proselytize to people in an era where we are expected to respect the religious or spiritual beliefs of other people?
The first issue is that these people speak a language which has affinities with tribes on the main island but are unintelligible to their ethnic kinsmen. How are outsiders going to enforce law and order on them? They do not know anything of the outside world and neither want to know about it. They simply want to be left alone. Their collective memory and historical experience must have left a negative attitude to outsiders. How are we to talk to them and ask them who the killers were? Will they accept an investigation by the police when John Allan Chau entered an island which under law is off-limits to outsiders? Those natives are not Indian citizens in the sense that they hold an Indian passport, identity card, or leave alone an Indian driver's license. Will they acknowledge Indian laws or their own tribal laws?
The next issue is the vulnerability of these people to infections as simple as the common cold. Contact will be deadly. We do not know what illnesses they have or have no immunity to. How we can wreak devastation on them as what happened to their racial kin on the main Andaman Islands (https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5509), (https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/jarawa)
Already two tribes on the main island are now extinct due depredations by outsiders. This could certainly happen to the North Sentinelese islanders should any contact be made with them.
Thirdly, since two tribes on the main island have died out and the remaining tribes are dropping in number, we will lose a part of humanity that has lived for so long. Should we allow this to happen? These people and their racial kinsmen have never hurt outsiders except to enforce their demand for isolation.
The fourth issue is that of proselytizing. Should religious conversion be allowed to these vulnerable people? There is already much strife die to religion in the world. Proselytizing and conversion results in cultural destruction and ethnic identity. Religion is often used for nefarious and pernicious purposes. It is used as a form of social control and economic and political exploitation. These people do not know of economic and social class differences. Rather, the concepts of unemployment, destitution and social class makes them a happier people like that of the natives of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean.
The fourth issue is that of proselytizing. Should religious conversion be allowed to these vulnerable people? There is already much strife die to religion in the world. Proselytizing and conversion results in cultural destruction and ethnic identity. Religion is often used for nefarious and pernicious purposes. It is used as a form of social control and economic and political exploitation. These people do not know of economic and social class differences. Rather, the concepts of unemployment, destitution and social class makes them a happier people like that of the natives of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean.
In conclusion, a police investigation is absurd and at best utterly and completely ludicrous. They are a protected people under Indian law but do not hold citizenship documents. They are not likely to know the names of the nations of the world leave alone the expanse of water where their island is located. They should be left alone so they can continue without epidemics breaking out from outside contact. We do not know if they have communicated any diseases from their limited contacts with outsiders and what they know from their historic experience of diseases from contact with outsiders. if they die out, land grabbing by hotel and resort building will occur as is already happening on the main island much to the detriment of the natives there. Such an event will destroy any endemic flora and fauna found on that island. The loss of the North Sentinelese will be loss to humanity. We will lose a culture that has existed for thousands of years, regardless that we do not know much about them. As such these people should be left alone.
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